'bubble' time - what is THE play?
small local tourney. 3-handed. 3rd place gets a ticket into next week's tourney (not transferrable i think), which is useless to me since i'm not available. second gets 6x buy-in, 1st gets about 11x buy-in plus entry into the tournament of champs (also, questionable value to me since i already have a ticket but i think i can make a deal with this). so let's call this the bubble.
i am the big stack but not by much. blinds 5/10k (with 2k ante?). i've got maybe 160-180k, second stack has a bit less and third stack has somewhere around 70-80k. i'm SB.
second stack min-raises from the button (or UTG depending on your persuasion). UTG is a veteran tournament player. he knows all the odds and how to read the players. some people think he is the second coming of chan. up to this point, i have not seen him making a min-raise. he's done the 3xbb thing lots and i don't think either of the others at the table have done a resteal on him in a while. we haven't seen a lot of flops on the final table. usually just raise PF and take it.
i'm a bit confused by the min-raise. is he playing a speculative hand hoping we're too tight to resteal so he's not risking much OR is he playing a huge hand looking for action? i've got A7o in the SB with the short stack in the BB still to act. what's the best play here?
i am the big stack but not by much. blinds 5/10k (with 2k ante?). i've got maybe 160-180k, second stack has a bit less and third stack has somewhere around 70-80k. i'm SB.
second stack min-raises from the button (or UTG depending on your persuasion). UTG is a veteran tournament player. he knows all the odds and how to read the players. some people think he is the second coming of chan. up to this point, i have not seen him making a min-raise. he's done the 3xbb thing lots and i don't think either of the others at the table have done a resteal on him in a while. we haven't seen a lot of flops on the final table. usually just raise PF and take it.
i'm a bit confused by the min-raise. is he playing a speculative hand hoping we're too tight to resteal so he's not risking much OR is he playing a huge hand looking for action? i've got A7o in the SB with the short stack in the BB still to act. what's the best play here?
Comments
My thinking it situations like this is as follows. It doesn't matter to me if I am the chip leader or short stack. +
My goal is to get heads up period.
I can see a flop and go from there; you have a great read Greg. With the big stack I use the chips as an investment to pick up on things. With his min raise take you time, agonize over it, call but look at him the whole time. You reading abilities will tell you if he wanted that call or not and then go from there maybe you can take it down, maybe you check to watch him go all in, maybe he is afraid of the Ace that hits because he has a pocket pair. The key point is use the chips as an investment in the future for your heads up match.
There were approximately 460,000 chips in play. My recollection is that after doubling up against the 4th place finisher and doing his Booyashaka dance,
1st - $640 + T.O.C. seat worth at least $100
2nd - $360
3rd - bubble prize of free buy-in for the next tournament worth ~$70.
pkrfce9 wanted $500 cash, I wanted the T.O.C. seat included, the lady wanted an even 3-way split, and nobody really wanted the bubble prize. We couldn't come to an agreement. I didn't mind to keep playing, since I believed that I had a skills advantage over the short stack and a deal would be easier to make when it got down to heads-up.
Using an Independent Chip Model calculator, my tournament equity was ~$364. In hindsight, I should have asked for the exact chip counts and at least offer a deal based on the Landrum-Burns or Proportional Chip Count Formula. I would have accepted an offer of ~$260 cash plus the T.O.C. seat.
I was the player who min-raised, so I will wait for others to reply before I make my comments on this and a similar tournament-deciding hand.
Why didn't he use she... why does he refer to you as a man .... I'm confuse.. lack of sleep ?
I'm a lost puppy
An avatar is not always indicitive of the gender of the actual poster.
Sorry to ruin the surprise for others... but anyone who can't wait to meet BlondeFish based on the avatar will be severely dissapointed :-)
Not that you're not a handsome guy Buddy... if you're into that thing... not that there's anything wrong with that ;-)
then it explains that thread when I joined that showed picture of blondefish and I couldn't find her on those pictures...
All this time I was in the dark !!
Why would a guy call himself blondefish?
weird world...
I'm guessing to laugh at this moment exactly?
Gullible people still abound on the internet thingy.
The UTG/Button's choice is min raise or push here.
Min raise if you want to take advantage of your position and small ball skill.
Pushing if you suck at small ball. (The villain concluded he has good small ball skill and can use position)
I don't like betting 3xBB here.
Why?
Betting 30K would pot commit the small stack if she decides to play..... She would be looking at a pot of 76K with 45K-55K behind... So if BB raises to 30K he would be looking at a 50K re-raise from the BB. Now you're looking at about 161K in the pot and getting over 3 to 1 and say goodbye to using your position and small ball skills. <he probably calls with either a red or a black card in his hand>
Betting 20K creates a more difficult problem for the BB. Now she's looking at a pot of 56K with 55-65K behind if she calls.
What range does the villain need to min raise here? .... Pretty much top 80%. He would probably not play the bottom 20% of hands but he might show some profit with them if he exploits his position. Something like T8o is plenty of hand to make this play.
I hate the position you're in. If you were after the BB it would be much easier.
Reason to play shove or fold:
The problem is the difficulty of playing the hand postflop.
A7o is a difficult hand to play small ball postflop. It's even more difficult to play out of position against a good player.
Conclusion: Fold... your hand may be the best , you might be ahead but you want to pick on an easier target who doesn't have position on you.
Thoughts?
i put him on a speculative hand (and when he posts the NEXT hand you'll see how good my reading abilities are...). i did not want to just call since i knew he'd likely put me to a difficult decision on the flop. if an Ace hits and i bet and he raises i have to fold. if i miss and check he's almost guaranteed to bet anyway...
i did not want to put all my chips at risk just in case he had a big hand so i raised back another 3xbb, planning to most likely fold to a push, depending on reads. i also wanted to see what the BB was going to do with her remaining 7xbb. she folded. UTG pushes, giving me about 2.5:1 odds as i recall.
calling and losing here puts me only slightly above the small stack. folding still leaves me with the big stack but not by much now. (can i get a receipt for that?) at this point, i put him on a big ace or 99+. i am probably getting sufficient pot odds vs his range. when mentioning the pot odds, he jumped into the discussion, giving me the impression (somehow) that he didn't mind a call.
winning this hand virtually guarantees me the tourney and losing it probably prevents my victory. folding still gives me a very good chance for 1st or 2nd. i have no interest in 3rd place.
thoughts on what to do now? what did you have anyway, buddy?
Really, the suspense is killing me!
When I first met Blondefish at a West Side Poker Event I was soooooo disappointed......lol. Don't get fooled, he is one of the tournament masters on this forum.